Student orders

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Signs of student orders

Student orders were secret student associations at the time of the Enlightenment .

history

In the 18th century , groups of students formed what are known as orders. Models were Masonic lodges and similar associations such as the Pug Order or literary-philosophical orders of the 17th and 18th centuries such as the Pegnese Flower Order , the Palm Order and the Illuminati Order . They were founded first within the old-style compatriots or as an alternative to them.

The ZN order , which had developed as a special form from the Irish Order of Hope or Ordre de l'Esperance around 1772 , was even in deliberate opposition to Freemasonry and expressly forbade its members from membership in Masonic lodges. He blurred the contrast between teachers and students and was under the direction of Professor of Medicine Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , last in 1784 as a senior . Due to aristocratic protection, the ZN-Order took over the leadership of the student body at the University of Göttingen until about 1784 and also played an important role at the University of Tübingen . In Göttingen in 1784 the electoral government in Hanover prohibited its continuation.

Important sources for the history of the orders are student records . If a member of the order registered there, he announced this by adding an appropriate abbreviation to his text (e.g. VC for Vivat Constantia ). In this way it can at least be determined when which orders were represented at a university and sometimes also who was a member there.

The orders were the first student associations that strived for a lifelong togetherness of the members. But they also helped to strengthen the connections to other universities if an order was represented in several cities. In this case, those who changed university found connections more quickly and also established the connection between the “order branches” at different locations.

The four most important orders were the Amicists , the Constantists , the Unitists and the Harmonists .

Freemasons, orders and old country teams

Schindelmeiser writes:

“Around 1740 Freemasonry, whose circles had formed in England, also gained a foothold in Germany via France. Freemasonry also found adherents in the universities. Above all, people of high intellectual standing who dealt with the "enlightenment" of mankind confessed to him. The membership of the then often very young students was not welcomed. Occasionally these formed their own boxes. About the creation of the student medals, Hoede reports that the Moselle Landsmannschaft in Jena had a "fritzisch" attitude during the Seven Years' War. This led to fights with enemies of Prussia that she decided to hold their meetings in the rooms, that is, in secret. In 1762, in their then newly drafted law, this country team granted the senior almost unlimited power. Sub-seniors and secretaries were appointed to support him, while admission only took place after strict selection in a formal process. This created the conditions for a closer alliance with greater strength, but independent of Freemasonry. The first order is that of the Amicists, which appeared in Jena in 1770. According to Hoede, it was also created without the influence of the Masonic Lodge, even though it was founded as a secret association. From here the student religious system spread through Halle to the other universities. In the later years, however, the orders also adopted Masonic customs. From then on they were brought into connection with their lodges, especially since Jacobins also gathered in their ranks. This in turn caused their deterioration. The relationship between the orders and the compatriots was generally tense. They saw their job in playing the first role. The unitists in Halle z. For example, the majority were theologians who acted pietistically and made it their business to combat the hustle and bustle of the country teams. However, opinions later changed. Since the friars were only known to one another, they also infiltrated the country teams and tried to rule them in their favor. Open enmity arose when the orders fell under the influence of subversive ideas. "

- Siegfried Schindelmeiser

A comment has come down to us from Jena, which was put up together by the order and country teams around 1790. He regulates the trade of honor between the connected and the profane.

Student orders by city
city Amicitia Constantia Unitas Harmonia
Altdorf No Yes No No
Erfurt Yes No No No
gain Yes Yes Yes Yes
Frankfurt Yes Yes Yes Yes
Freiberg No No No Yes
to water Yes No No Yes
Goettingen Yes Yes Yes Yes
Greifswald No No Yes No
Hall Yes Yes Yes No
Heidelberg No Yes No Yes
Helmstedt No Yes No Yes
Jena Yes Yes Yes Yes
Koenigsberg No No No Yes
Leipzig Yes Yes Yes No
Mainz Yes No No No
Marburg Yes Yes Yes Yes
Rostock No Yes Yes No
Tübingen Yes No No Yes
Vienna No Yes No No
Wittenberg Yes Yes Yes No
Wurzburg Yes Yes No No

Although the orders were rather apolitical, they were viewed with suspicion by the respective authorities. In absolutism , associations of people were considered potentially dangerous and detrimental to the interests of the state. In connection with the French Revolution , the majority of the orders recognized their ideals. Their connections to other revolutionary-minded circles - such as the Rosicrucians or the Illuminati - sharpened their political objectives and led them to precise political projects and actions.

At the beginning of June 1792, Duke Karl August von Weimar issued the Conclusum Corporis Evangelicorum against the orders. In June 1793 the Reichstag in Regensburg passed the Reichsgutachten, which was supposed to ban all student medals. However, this imperial report was never ratified by the emperor and was therefore not valid. At many German universities, however, bans were issued which were based on this Reich report. Prussia, on the other hand, legitimized student community forms in its General Land Law of 1794 in Article 137 (12), provided that they had the place of academic authority and did not pursue any anti-state purposes.

Although the government criticism justified that the Order held their members from studying, they shall deceive the dawdling, delivered often tumultuous states and incite perjury, yet above all the fear was Jacobin machinations that at every sounding of the sung enthusiastically Marseillaise the State violence frightened, the real reason for the ban.

After the fall of the student orders at the end of the 18th century, the external elements of the old country teams and those of Freemasonry formed the first connections of today's type. These new connections, some of which still exist today, were later called corps , some founded the first fraternity in Jena in 1815 . In the USA in the 19th century, the student orders developed into fraternities and sororities with their typical fraternity houses , which are often integrated into campus as dormitories.

See also

literature

  • Matthias Asche : Secret elites. Lecture at the Bensheim Talks 2011, abridged in FAZ on August 3, 2011, page N5 under the title Nursery of righteous men and useful for the fatherland
  • Erich Bauer , FA Pietzsch: To the Göttingen Order of Unitists (1786–1799) . In: then and now . Volume 13 (1968), pp. 55-67.
  • Otto Deneke : Old Göttingen country teams. Göttingen 1937.
  • Otto Deneke: Göttingen student order. Göttingen 1938.
  • Karl Hoede: Guys out. As a reminder of the origins of the old boyhood. Frankfurt am Main 1962.
  • Peter Kaupp : Freemasonry and Boy Customs. Continuity of religious traditions in corporate students . In: then and now. Volume 46 (2001), pp. 33-68.
  • Rudolf Körner : On the nature of the student orders . Einst und Jetzt, Vol. 6 (1961), pp. 141-149.
  • Friedrich Christian Laukhard : The Mosellaner or Amicist order depicted according to its origin, internal constitution and distribution on the German universities. Hall 1799.
  • Friedrich August Pietzsch: The Unitist order in Leipzig and the stud book. CA Herzog from the years 1800–1802 . In: then and now. Volume 7 (1962), pp. 118-130.
  • Walter Richter: The Esperance and ZN medals . Einst und Jetzt, Vol. 19 (1974), pp. 30-54.
  • Götz von Selle : Göttingen's student liaison system in the assessment of the academic senate of 1792. Göttinger Jahrbuch 1 (1928), pp. 14-27.

Web links

Commons : Student Orders  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siegfried Schindelmeiser: The Albertina and its students 1544 to WS 1850/51 , vol. 1, p. 37. Munich 2010.
  2. ^ A b W. Fabricius : The German Corps . Frankfurt am Main 1926, p. 56 ff.
  3. ↑ a b Hoede, Einst und Jetzt, Volume 12, pp. 5 ff.
  4. ↑ a b Rainer A. Müller: Country teams and student orders in the German universities of the 17th and 18th centuries. Studentica Academia, Volume 36, Würzburg, 1997, p. 30 ff.
  5. ^ Max Blau and Gottfried Schilling, Chronicle of the Corps Saxo-Montania in Freiberg and Dresden in Aachen, Vol. 1 Corps Montania, pp. 13-14, self-published 1977
  6. ^ Karl Härter: Reichstag and Revolution. 1992, p. 372 f.
  7. ↑ Härter, p. 374.
  8. ↑ HJ Schopes: The History of student Order of the 18th century. in: Z. f. Religious and intellectual history 2 (1949/50), p. 20.